


Where Handshakes Are Shared By Strangers

by piecesofalice



Category: Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you really have a jet?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Handshakes Are Shared By Strangers

  
"Do you really have a jet?"

  
"I do."

  
Ted did a line of coke, and the girl giggled. He couldn't remember her name, but he knew that he'd remember this night when he was sixty-four, even if it was a little hazy around the edges.

  
\--

  
Take off and landing were the same, because it was a private jet and you didn't have to follow the same rules as commercial. The girl squirmed on his lap, and sculled the champagne; Ted's associates in an orgy of indulgence and a blatant disregard for the laws of wherever they were fanned out across the beige leather plane until they blurred into some sort of multi-headed beast.

  
Money didn't buy happiness, he snorted. Then he gave Whatever-Her-Name-Was a strawberry from a silver tray and threw his head back to laugh.

  
\--

  
The vase shattered over his head, and he was pretty sure his pupils were dilating from the disgustingly bright light that was coming from the direction of his wife.

  
His very angry, holding-a-tape wife.

  
"Fucking! In my bed!"

  
A first edition Dickens (he bought as an investment) hit the same spot as the vase.

  
"Taping it! You _taped_ it! And _left it in the VCR!_ Fuck you! Fuck _you_!"

  
Ted took in the scene and decided it was too much, and left his soon-to-be ex destroying the house and their marriage and everything else he'd once been so proud of to slip into the coma called sleep.

  
\--

  
Thirteen hours later, Ted watched as streams of policemen searched his office. They seized the coke, the computers, his hidden wall safe.

  
And in the middle of it all, Ted stood, like the eye of the storm and wasn't surprised when the cold hard reality of handcuffs tickled the edge of his now-useless power suit.

  
\--

  
"Guilty," was the obvious sentence.

  
"Maybe," said his lawyer, who barely hid his distain, "you'll learn to grow up in prison."

  
The sun was stupidly bright. He thought of his wife, then thought better of that.

  
"Maybe I will." And he wondered when his hands became so old looking, as the cuffs were slapped on again and he was lead to jail like the dog he knew he was.

  
\--

  
The first blow was hard, but the second stung like a bee.

  
No floating, no butterflies, just the rock-face of Jimbo or Jumbo or whatever this dude's name was, smiling as he pummeled Ted for his lunch money.

  
_I don't want to go to school today, Mom,_ Ted thought, as his lip split. The crimson sprayed onto the unfamiliar, pale arm that seemed to come out of no-where, and he thought how nice it looked.

  
Like a Jackson Pollock painting.

  
When he came to, Ted met Charlie Crews and wondered what the price on saving a stranger in jail was.

  
\--

  
"It was that stupid kind of rich, y'know?"

  
"Yeah."

  
"You don't understand," Ted sighed, and Charlie smiled, slightly.

  
"No. But I understand stupid kinds of living."

  
Ted never fully understood Charlie, but after two years, he realised slight confusion at a red haired man was a small dime to fork out for getting his ass out alive.

  
So he just smiled and drew circles in the patchy dirt at their feet, and thought about how hindsight’s a bitch.

  
\---

  
The sun was in his eyes when he left Pelican Bay, and didn't expect to see his ex-wife waiting for him. She wasn't, so he boarded the bus and went looking for a job to fill in the hours between now and eternity.

  
He didn't want to work at a five-and-dime, so he worked in a call centre, selling insurance and accepting claims from people he'd never see. In and out, on the clock; parole officer at night and _Conan_ until he fell asleep. Then up again, do it again, wish it over again.

  
Ted quit the day Charlie was released.

  
It was like being let out of jail again.

  
\--

  
The house echoed, and it drove him nuts. He tried to fill it with old memories, of threesomes and Steve Earle, but with growing intensity, Ted realised that he wasn't who he was three years ago.

  
\--

  
Charlie's books balanced, Ted's mind shifted. The police sniffed around, and Ted became as paranoid as a coyote.

  
"I’d be stupid to believe you didn't have any secrets, Charlie," and Charlie nodded, and finally, finally showed him the files and papers and together, they poured over them like a mismatched Hardy Boys rip-off.

  
Ted met Dani Reese, and he knew she was good for his conflicted friend. Knew she'd hold him to the ground when he wasn't around to help. He met the neighbours, rich playboys that reminded him of yesterday’s past, and his head became itchy, so he’d stay in doors and watch the world out of the kitchen window.

  
\--

  
No-one else came knocking at the house he shared with his wannabe-saviour, and that suited Ted to the ground. He breathed the LA air and looked past the sun, and for once, enjoyed life with no money in his wallet and a bottle of water in his hand.

  
And more than anything else, Ted Earley woke up in the morning and catagorised his regrets by age and name and remembered everything else as clear as a bell.

  
\---

  
_Fin._

  
\---


End file.
